Ulster County lawmakers withdraw gun control resolution

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Ulster County Legislators Don Gregorius and David Donaldson have withdrawn a resolution calling on the federal government to implement nationwide gun regulations.

The action by the two Democrats comes just days after hundreds of gun rights advocates descended on a Legislature meeting to decry gun control laws. But Gregorius said the outcry did not play a role in the decision.

"The fact is, they didn't address the issue," Gregorius, of Woodstock, said of the more than 50 speakers at the Legislature's Jan. 22 meeting. "Most people there were talking to New York state issue, and so their comments were misplaced."

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Rather, he said, the resolution has been pulled because as the issue continues to gain national prominence, the need to ask the federal elected officials to act has waned.

"With the intent of the resolution being carried out, we now feel a continued discussion ... would reap little additional benefit," Gregorius said.

Many speakers at the Jan. 22 meeting decried the slashing of mental health funding, arguing that psychological screening and treatment are the only viable ways to prevent mass killings like the one in Newtown, Conn.

Many also asserted the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment grants an unqualified right to keep and bear arms.

"It's a very, very passionate issue, but (the comments) didn't do a lot to address the issues in the resolution whatsoever," Gregorius said.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown on Dec. 14, Gregorius and Donaldson, a Kingston resident who serves as Legislature minority leader, introduced a resolution asking President Barack Obama and Congress to "establish and implement federal laws that will protect the safety of the public from the tragic consequences of intentional and unintentional misuse of firearms."

Gregorius said the proposal was not intended to further limit legal gun ownership or use in New York state but rather to urge the federal government to put into place controls to prevent the illegal movement of firearms from states that have little or no controls to states that have gun control laws designed to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of criminals.

"Presently, there is no effective way to stop the movement of weapons from one state to another regardless of the individual state laws," Gregorius wrote in a legislative memo withdrawing the resolution.

Gregorius said he had hoped the resolution would help start a dialogue on the federal level toward finding solutions for the illegal misuse of firearms while protecting the Second Amendment rights of the public.

"More comprehensive standard background checks as well as better communications between the various state and federal agencies can only be enacted and carried out on a federal level," Gregorius stated.